Has Joe Hockey actually made a good point?

This morning while doing to daily news round up I read an article that made me think… A lot! It was written by Harold Mitchell in the Sydney Morning Herald and took an approach to the Intergenerational Report that no one in the media has taken yet.

He said that at the essence of what Joe Hockey is trying to say with the Intergenerational report is in fact, not what we’ve been focussing on. Harold wrote, “Hockey is saying that we have to change. Forget the politics for a moment. The fact is we have to and now. If we don’t we are all very selfish people stealing the future from our children.”

The Intergenerational Report is about educating us about the future. It tells us what the expected shifts are and how this will affect different parts of Australia’s economy. It is teaching us that as the population ages, the economy will change and so too will the way we run things.

So in the commotion are we forgetting to listen to Joe Hockey’s real message and think about our own legacy?

Do you want to leave your grandkids and great-grandkids an Australia that is broken? Or do you want to leave an Australia that helps them to grow? Are we being too selfish and short sighted in our reaction to working longer – which is unlikely to actually affect our own generation and it will affect our children instead.

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Harold also made an interesting point saying that in order to leave the best Australia for our grandchildren and great grandchildren, five things need to be done. “1. Create valuable jobs for our children. 2. Build hospitals not doctor’s fee schedules. 3. Fill universities with students who will stay in Australia and build the country. 4. Make housing affordable. 5. Invest in environmental repair now so children don’t have the burden in the future.”

He also pointed out that politicians today are focussed on making change in three years, and change is never something that can happen over night.

So today I’m curious. Have we missed the point of the Intergenerational Report? Do you agree with Joe Hockey that we need to change? Do you think that we need political harmony and a focus on the bigger picture to get there? Share your thoughts in the comments below…